Chef Dee Lavigne co-hosts Smithsonian program on New Orleans chef Lena Richard
Dee Lavigne started cooking at age 7 and she later attended the Culinary Institute of America.
Lavigne co-hosts “Lena Richard’s New Orleans Cook Book: A Groundbreaking Story of Innovation and Resilience,” which is part of the Smithsonian Institution’s three-part Cooking Up History series. Born in 1892, Richard was a Black woman chef and entrepreneur who owned two restaurants, authored a 1939 cookbook on Creole food, started a frozen food company and hosted twice weekly morning cooking segments on WDSU-TV in 1949, a decade before Julia Child hit the air.
The seminar features Lavigne cooking one of Richard’s dishes and historian Ashley Rose Young, who is writing a book about Richard. The in-person portion is open to SoFAB members, and the program is available online via the Smithsonian (find the link at the SoFAB website) at 5:45 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 5.
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